I just saw this and didn't realize I had seen and commented 2 years ago. I ended up getting an 8" jointer, so glad I didn't get the 6". Regardless, great video and you are responsible for the yellow pine work bench I made a few years ago and have no regrets. Tip: Instead of double sided tape, I use blue tape (several pieces) on each board with super glue on the tape for adhesion. Easier to remove IMO than double sided tape. Thanks Mark Spagnolo for the tape tip.
I like this method Jay. I couldn't have done it with my old jointer, as the mount for the guard was flush with the out feed table, so it would be in the way even with the guard removed. But I'll make sure my next jointer is like yours, that's for sure!
2:15 into the video - "make sure the friction on the bed surface of the planer is less than the top surface of the plywood touching the actual wood itself" - easy - double sided tape used for woodturning or carpet tape. Great tip Jay! That is why you get paid the big bucks! Thanks!
+Alan Erickson hahaha no big bucks here. Starting my business has finally allowed me to be labeled "Middle Class" in the USA. Double sided tape would work but is just an added step most of the time. I didn't use anything in this example. Just a regular piece of 1/2" ply.
Thanks Jay, I've been a joiner 33yrs n it's rare i learn something new, i have a 6" jointer but a 12" Dewalt thicknesser, I think I'm going to use this method.
Good solution Jay / now all I need is an awesome 8” jointer LOL. I wanna tell you tho’ A planer sled with the wedges etc is no big deal - I work mostly on/site and you have to get creative sometimes. A hunk of plywood, some carpet tape, and a handful of cedar shims is all it takes. I hot-glue or 2P-10 a backstop on the plywood so it works like a bench hook, and then just use the shims to hold everything steady / takes literally 2 minutes to be ready to send it through.
Since I found a great deal on a 6" jointer, I think i'll get it now. A simple stop connected to the end of the plywood piece would prevent the slippage of the board being jointed if that was an issue. Great tip. Thanks.
I had tried to use a hand plane on my board only to make a mess of it. This is a great tip for us less then skillful guys with hand planes. Thanks for Sharing Jay. Gonna put this on Face Book.
How could anyone in their right mind not thumbs up this video. This is one of those shop tricks that are so simple that most people would never think of.
As soon as you said you were going to remove the un-jointed edge with the planer I realized what you were going to do. I've never thought or heard of this before. Great tip Jay I love your videos keep it up.
Thank you. Another video used this exact same technique but they didn't show the closeup of the spacer slotting neatly into the jointed board, so I didn't know what they were doing and I thought they were wrong. Good job!
Really interesting and intelligent, sometimes I not quite know how to make a piece of wood is completely smooth on both sides but after seeing the video got completely clear. Thank you very much for the tip, excellent.
I don't have a jointer. I use a piece of melamine board and a thickness planer. I place a couple of strips of masking tape on the melamine board and then apply a couple dabs of hot melt glue to the tape. I then place the work piece onto the melamine board. The hot melt glue serves to hold the work piece in place and at a constant distance from the bottom of the melamine board. Simple, quick, easy and works great.
at first I thought you were going to run it through the planer without the plywood, that would not make it flat. this is another one of your simple but great ideas, using things we already have around the shop. thanks Jay!
I am anxiously awaiting my new Grizzly planer that has been backordered for a month now. I was looking to joint some 8" boards for my new dining room moulding but can't wait any longer for the new planer. I found this and think it is a great idea. Will be using this today to plane down my moulding.
Great idea! You could also attach the plywood to your planer base and let the board ride over the plywood, instead of passing the board and the plywood through.
Excellent Tip Jay. I have a six inch jointer and this will save me lots of time spent with the hand plane on that left over edge. Thanks for posting this.
+ode2george Jointer size is based mostly off of what you do. A good rule of thumb is a board should be 3-4 times wider than it's thickness to remain stable. So if you use primarily 4/4 or 5/4, then an 8" is really all you'll ever need. A lot of guys on RUclips like to use thicker material in the 8/4-12/4 range and so often times have larger ones. Typically a 12" will handle probably 95% of anything you'll want to do (short of a big slab). But if you've got the cash and the space, go with the Northfield 24" beast and it'll solve all your problems haha.
I think a key setting, that has not been shown in any rabbiting videos, is that the knives have to be flush or slightly past the front of the outfeed table. slightly towards the operator. I tried this on my jointer and the board butted up against the ledge of the outfeed. Thanks so much for the video Jay.
Great tip Jay. Had wondered about something like this. I've got a 6 inch jet jointer, and the 13 inch dewalt. So this will come in very handy in some later projects. Thanks
Dude! Thanks! My 6" jointer can't handle the full width of some drawer box boards I'm doing (they're more than 7" wide), so I think I'll try this! Hopefully someday I can get a 12" jointer/planer combo.
and the best thing about this video is that I realized I can remove the rabbeting extension on my jointer, so that I can get a 90 degree plane on that first face.
Two tips. First, keep scrap wood nearby and run a piece through first and last in your run. So if you have 5 pieces to run, you now have 7. If you run the boards through with no gap between them the rollers will never fall on the good pieces, which causes snipe. The first scrap piece with get snipe on it, feed the rest through, and the last scrap piece will get snipe on it. This requires scrap wood that you may not always have but it is the only way to guarantee zero snipe, period. The second tip would be to feed the board in on an angle. It doesn't eliminate it but it drastically reduces it in my experience. Snipe is caused by the material lifting the cutter head slightly as the first roller engages with the wood, then it starts the cut, and then the second roller engages with the wood and lifts again. This second lift, after the cut is in progress, is what causes snipe. Feeding the material in on an angle makes the corner of the board engage the roller first, reducing the sudden impact, and therefore reducing the obvious snipe bump. It's not perfect but it's better than nothing.
Plastic sheets are rarely consistent thickness. In particular cast acrylic is notoriously uneven. I've worked in signage and display shops where we used both CNC routers and lasers to cut plastic of all sorts (styrene, sintra/pvc, cast and extruded acrylic, and more) and it is a HUGE pain to try to do joinery with that stuff. Extruded acrylic is much more consistent than cast, but still not perfect when it works right a laser-cut finger joint in acrylic is very cool. But you have to check the entire sheet with calipers and thickness gauges before cutting. I've seen variations up to almost 50% of the nominal thickness in cheaper grades, and even the more expensive kinds usually exhibit 10% difference from one part of a sheet to another.
That was slick. Beautifully done. And know that I remember I click subscribe. I like your work, full of great pointers and not only for hobbyist/beginners.
Just used this to joint some sides for a bedside table where I didn't want a line through the middle from having to cut it in half just to joint it to glue it back again. Genius.
I love this stuff but I have a General International jointer and protection guard is install on swelling which is part of the in-feed table and makes it impossible to pass a board more than once. Just see the #80-200L model.
I have the Porter Cable 6" bench top jointer. I bought it at Lowes 2 years ago for around $200. The good: I've had no issues with it at all. I've run a lot of board feet through it and am only now replacing the blades (which are cheap and readily available). It's fairly easy to set up the tables to be parallel and it generally stays there. The bad: The fence is rather light weight and can actually bend and move while jointing. For instance, if you are edge jointing some 6/4 hard wood and pushing up against the fence to get a good square face, you have to be careful you use a light touch. Push too hard and it will bend out of square. The other issue is that it's just small but that is to be expected. Having said all that, I'm currently looking to upgrade to a real 8" jointer. I need something more substantial at this point. I feel like for $200 I definitely got my moneys worth out of that Porter Cable.
If you do not have a consistent spacer, you already have the tool for the job! Take any board that's as long and wide as needed, and plane it enough to make its thickness consistent. You can even plane plywood; just make sure you don't cut into the glue layers. The glue will dull the blades, or so I've read. You may need to take off only a few .001".
Ah seems so simple great tip! Is a 6in jointer going to be satisfactory for most jobs in a garage shop? and would you recommend a floor stand or desktop? I thought of maybe making a flip-up for space-saving with plywood table extensions.
I've not seen this procedure before - nice, simple and effective. I saw in another comment that you make most of your income from your web site and not RUclips. Is that from advertising?? Thanks, Scott
I just saw this and didn't realize I had seen and commented 2 years ago. I ended up getting an 8" jointer, so glad I didn't get the 6". Regardless, great video and you are responsible for the yellow pine work bench I made a few years ago and have no regrets. Tip: Instead of double sided tape, I use blue tape (several pieces) on each board with super glue on the tape for adhesion. Easier to remove IMO than double sided tape. Thanks Mark Spagnolo for the tape tip.
Hey Jay, I had planned on upgrading from my 6" jointer to an 8" and you just saved me a fortune! Thanks buddy.
I like this method Jay. I couldn't have done it with my old jointer, as the mount for the guard was flush with the out feed table, so it would be in the way even with the guard removed. But I'll make sure my next jointer is like yours, that's for sure!
+Andrew Klein I'd not thought of that. I'll have to go and look to see if my new joiner guard can be removed. Going to be a real bummer if not.
2:15 into the video - "make sure the friction on the bed surface of the planer is less than the top surface of the plywood touching the actual wood itself" - easy - double sided tape used for woodturning or carpet tape.
Great tip Jay! That is why you get paid the big bucks!
Thanks!
+Alan Erickson hahaha no big bucks here. Starting my business has finally allowed me to be labeled "Middle Class" in the USA. Double sided tape would work but is just an added step most of the time. I didn't use anything in this example. Just a regular piece of 1/2" ply.
Thanks Jay, I've been a joiner 33yrs n it's rare i learn something new, i have a 6" jointer but a 12" Dewalt thicknesser, I think I'm going to use this method.
Good solution Jay / now all I need is an awesome 8” jointer LOL. I wanna tell you tho’ A planer sled with the wedges etc is no big deal - I work mostly on/site and you have to get creative sometimes. A hunk of plywood, some carpet tape, and a handful of cedar shims is all it takes. I hot-glue or 2P-10 a backstop on the plywood so it works like a bench hook, and then just use the shims to hold everything steady / takes literally 2 minutes to be ready to send it through.
i just got a little 6inch jointer .so now i need to make a sled for my planer .total time saver thanks for sharing that!
Since I found a great deal on a 6" jointer, I think i'll get it now. A simple stop connected to the end of the plywood piece would prevent the slippage of the board being jointed if that was an issue. Great tip. Thanks.
I was thinking double sided tapr or hot glue but a stopper is a great idea
I had tried to use a hand plane on my board only to make a mess of it. This is a great tip for us less then skillful guys with hand planes. Thanks for Sharing Jay. Gonna put this on Face Book.
This guy is one smart cookie ! Thanks for showing this trick . I never thought of doing it that way !
How could anyone in their right mind not thumbs up this video.
This is one of those shop tricks that are so simple that most people would never think of.
As soon as you said you were going to remove the un-jointed edge with the planer I realized what you were going to do. I've never thought or heard of this before. Great tip Jay I love your videos keep it up.
Thanks for the help. I've seen a lot of your videos but I've never had need to watch this one until now. Works great!
Thank you. Another video used this exact same technique but they didn't show the closeup of the spacer slotting neatly into the jointed board, so I didn't know what they were doing and I thought they were wrong. Good job!
Just used this tip / technique a couple of days ago and all I can say is it works like a charm. Thanks Jay for this awesome How To Vid.
The best shop tricks are the ones that make you say, "Oh, duh, why didn't I think if that?" Nice video man, I'm off to go plane some boards!
Really interesting and intelligent, sometimes I not quite know how to make a piece of wood is completely smooth on both sides but after seeing the video got completely clear. Thank you very much for the tip, excellent.
Glad I ran across this again. I was getting ready to buy a 12 inch jointer. Kudos for the tip.
I don't have a jointer. I use a piece of melamine board and a thickness planer. I place a couple of strips of masking tape on the melamine board and then apply a couple dabs of hot melt glue to the tape. I then place the work piece onto the melamine board. The hot melt glue serves to hold the work piece in place and at a constant distance from the bottom of the melamine board. Simple, quick, easy and works great.
at first I thought you were going to run it through the planer without the plywood, that would not make it flat. this is another one of your simple but great ideas, using things we already have around the shop. thanks Jay!
I am anxiously awaiting my new Grizzly planer that has been backordered for a month now. I was looking to joint some 8" boards for my new dining room moulding but can't wait any longer for the new planer. I found this and think it is a great idea. Will be using this today to plane down my moulding.
Great idea! You could also attach the plywood to your planer base and let the board ride over the plywood, instead of passing the board and the plywood through.
Excellent Tip Jay. I have a six inch jointer and this will save me lots of time spent with the hand plane on that left over edge. Thanks for posting this.
If you had to do it over again, would you have gotten a bigger jointer? I'm currently in the market for a jointer but I'm a hobbyist at best. Cheers!
+ode2george Jointer size is based mostly off of what you do. A good rule of thumb is a board should be 3-4 times wider than it's thickness to remain stable. So if you use primarily 4/4 or 5/4, then an 8" is really all you'll ever need. A lot of guys on RUclips like to use thicker material in the 8/4-12/4 range and so often times have larger ones. Typically a 12" will handle probably 95% of anything you'll want to do (short of a big slab). But if you've got the cash and the space, go with the Northfield 24" beast and it'll solve all your problems haha.
Second time I've seen the video, I ran into that problem today and remembered you had a video so I went back to it for a refresher.
I think a key setting, that has not been shown in any rabbiting videos, is that the knives have to be flush or slightly past the front of the outfeed table. slightly towards the operator. I tried this on my jointer and the board butted up against the ledge of the outfeed.
Thanks so much for the video Jay.
One of the best tips I've ever seen. I might be biased as I'm looking for a jointer and struggling with the cost of wider jointers than 6"
A couple of comments, 1. That was a nice piece of timber, it looked like yellow pine. 2. You have a great workshop. Thanks for the vid
Southern yellow pine.
Wow, that's a great idea! It seems so obvious after you pointed it out :)
Excellent, I love simple and elegant soloutions........now I just need a thicknesser!
Hey from Macomb twp! Just getting into wood working myself, very good job explaining everything. Nice video!!
Why are the simple things the hardest to think of - great tip!
Such a good idea. I've just bought a joiner to go with my planner. I knew about the sled and dreaded making one. Great tip.
Useful idea and it was nicely demonstrated and explained in the video. Thanks!
Great stuff, always glad to hear things can be made possible with available tools!
Good stuff, Jay! Quick and easy without a lot of stressing over it. Just be cautious and careful and then it's good to go.
Solid genius. Ive been trying to solve this problem for a long time! Thank you.
Good one Jay :)
+John Heisz Thank you John.
As someone with a 4" jointer, you're a lifesaver!
Very clever idea, Jay! I'll be sure to remember this for future projects.
very nice! I really like the planer jig/table. I have the same planer, with the fold down extensions. This looks better IMO.
Thanks for both videos. This is some good info, I will use this in my little shop. Thanks Jay
Keep up the good informative Vid's. It's been good to see your back working hard in the shop or at least posting videos from the shop.
This RUclips Red is AWESOME .... now we get DAILY videos from Jay Bates
+WannaBeWood Smith hahahah. has nothing to do with RED
I've really been enjoying your videos. Keep up the good work.
Very nice tip! Well explained and demonstrated.
thanks jay will try from now on have been cutting off only have 6" jointer but thanks for the tip
Great tip Jay! I always enjoy your videos.
Very helpful Jay. Thanks for sharing!
Great tip Jay. Had wondered about something like this. I've got a 6 inch jet jointer, and the 13 inch dewalt. So this will come in very handy in some later projects. Thanks
Another problem solved! Thanks Jay. Guess I'll have to sharpen my jointer blades today.
That dust collection works so well wow
Wow this is an awesome trick! Thanks for showing us
As usual, great tips Jay
Very well done. The only thing I'd suggest is to add a stop to the back of your sled.
Dude! Thanks! My 6" jointer can't handle the full width of some drawer box boards I'm doing (they're more than 7" wide), so I think I'll try this! Hopefully someday I can get a 12" jointer/planer combo.
VERY clever! Many thanks for sharing Jay.
what a good idea, seems obvious now that you pointed it out. Totally going to do that. well maybe i'll check out the follow up video first
and the best thing about this video is that I realized I can remove the rabbeting extension on my jointer, so that I can get a 90 degree plane on that first face.
That was clear enough that I sub’d. I still want to upsize from my 6” jointer - hey, dreams are why we can fly
Great tip! Thanks, I will be trying
this very soon.
Jay, this is awesome thanks for sharing. What about adding a small cleat to the back of the plywood to act as a stop? Thanks for sharing!
Clever... Very Clever.
I just bought a Grizzly G0814, so this trick will be well used.
Awesome idea Jay.
Clever and easy trick. Good job!
I found this very useful. I'm going to try it out myself.
Such great tip, love it!! Thank you. Any tips for avoiding planer snipe, without complicated setups?
Two tips. First, keep scrap wood nearby and run a piece through first and last in your run. So if you have 5 pieces to run, you now have 7. If you run the boards through with no gap between them the rollers will never fall on the good pieces, which causes snipe. The first scrap piece with get snipe on it, feed the rest through, and the last scrap piece will get snipe on it. This requires scrap wood that you may not always have but it is the only way to guarantee zero snipe, period. The second tip would be to feed the board in on an angle. It doesn't eliminate it but it drastically reduces it in my experience. Snipe is caused by the material lifting the cutter head slightly as the first roller engages with the wood, then it starts the cut, and then the second roller engages with the wood and lifts again. This second lift, after the cut is in progress, is what causes snipe. Feeding the material in on an angle makes the corner of the board engage the roller first, reducing the sudden impact, and therefore reducing the obvious snipe bump. It's not perfect but it's better than nothing.
Plastic sheets are rarely consistent thickness. In particular cast acrylic is notoriously uneven. I've worked in signage and display shops where we used both CNC routers and lasers to cut plastic of all sorts (styrene, sintra/pvc, cast and extruded acrylic, and more) and it is a HUGE pain to try to do joinery with that stuff. Extruded acrylic is much more consistent than cast, but still not perfect when it works right a laser-cut finger joint in acrylic is very cool. But you have to check the entire sheet with calipers and thickness gauges before cutting. I've seen variations up to almost 50% of the nominal thickness in cheaper grades, and even the more expensive kinds usually exhibit 10% difference from one part of a sheet to another.
That was slick. Beautifully done. And know that I remember I click subscribe. I like your work, full of great pointers and not only for hobbyist/beginners.
Absolutely brilliant, thanks for this tip!
Just used this to joint some sides for a bedside table where I didn't want a line through the middle from having to cut it in half just to joint it to glue it back again. Genius.
Great vid! I like to use a router planing sled to true up wide stock, it works very well!
One of those "why didn't I think of that" moments. Great tip.
I love this stuff but I have a General International jointer and protection guard is install on swelling which is part of the in-feed table and makes it impossible to pass a board more than once. Just see the #80-200L model.
Here I am shimming a jointer sled to death and I could’ve been doing this instead 🤦🏻♂️ this is an amazing technique. Thanks Jay
This is a great tip! Thank you. Wish I had found this last week. :)
Great tip for a newbie like me.. appreciate it.
Great tip Jay! Big thumbs up!
Doh! Can't believe I didn't think of that. Nice trick
I needed that video! Thanks! God bless!
That's such a great idea, why did I never think of that before.
Simple and clever solution. Thanks for sharing
excellent solution! great video
That was pretty slick and easy. Great tip.
+Stanton Taylor Thanks Stanton.
Great trick Jay!
Dude this is brilliant! Thank you!
Great Idea, Bob
Another great video and useful tip! Thanks Jay!
awesome!!! I will never use my wedge sled again!!! BTW - I watched your follow up first - that is even more awesomer!!! :-)
Thanks for that clever tip Jay!
thank you for Keeping It So Simple
Hey Jay great video ..why not use the table saw to gently remove that little extra wood ???
Great Idea, thanks Jay
Brilliant! Did any trolls come out and say why they didn't like it?
that's the quickest way I've seen. thanks
PLEASE recommend a good benchtop jointer for me and others with small spaces.
We trust you Jay.
I have no experience with a benchtop jointer so I cannot offer a recommendation. Sorry.
Thank You anyway. I am now looking up instructions on setting one up... Come on RUclips, Show me the money! LOL
I have the Porter Cable 6" bench top jointer. I bought it at Lowes 2 years ago for around $200. The good: I've had no issues with it at all. I've run a lot of board feet through it and am only now replacing the blades (which are cheap and readily available). It's fairly easy to set up the tables to be parallel and it generally stays there. The bad: The fence is rather light weight and can actually bend and move while jointing. For instance, if you are edge jointing some 6/4 hard wood and pushing up against the fence to get a good square face, you have to be careful you use a light touch. Push too hard and it will bend out of square. The other issue is that it's just small but that is to be expected.
Having said all that, I'm currently looking to upgrade to a real 8" jointer. I need something more substantial at this point. I feel like for $200 I definitely got my moneys worth out of that Porter Cable.
Great tip Jay.
Cool technique! Thanks for sharing!
If you do not have a consistent spacer, you already have the tool for the job! Take any board that's as long and wide as needed, and plane it enough to make its thickness consistent. You can even plane plywood; just make sure you don't cut into the glue layers. The glue will dull the blades, or so I've read. You may need to take off only a few .001".
Ah seems so simple great tip! Is a 6in jointer going to be satisfactory for most jobs in a garage shop? and would you recommend a floor stand or desktop? I thought of maybe making a flip-up for space-saving with plywood table extensions.
wow something so simple YOURE A GENIUS XD
I've not seen this procedure before - nice, simple and effective. I saw in another comment that you make most of your income from your web site and not RUclips. Is that from advertising?? Thanks, Scott
+The 2 Car Garage Shop Advertising and plan sales. Plan sales are what helps the most.